


mocha

by dutchydoescoke



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10375113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchydoescoke/pseuds/dutchydoescoke
Summary: It’s not a coffee shop.Maia repeats it to herself at least a dozen times a day, whenever someone comes in and requests a cup of coffee and she’s contractually obligated to ask if they’d like a shot of Kahlua in it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Shadowhunters AU Mondays.
> 
> For clarification purposes, Jace is non-binary in this. As I said on twitter, Jace is a nb lesbian. So. (@show: can that be canon yet?) That's why it's only tagged f/f. (@show again: give me Izzy/Maia/Jace come on.)

_It’s not a coffee shop._

Maia repeats it to herself at least a dozen times a day, whenever someone comes in and requests a cup of coffee and she’s contractually obligated to ask if they’d like a shot of Kahlua in it.

It’s not a coffee shop.

It’s a coffee _bar_.

There’s not a major difference, really, because they still serve pastries, they still serve coffee, and if Maia has to hear someone ask for a venti _one more time_ when the sizes ( _small_ , _medium_ , _large_ , _extra large/legal caffeine limit_ ) are on the board, she’s going to shove the steamer wand up someone’s nose and turn it on. (At least they also serve alcohol and she gets a severe employee discount on mixed drinks.)

So when some cocky blond asshole shows up and asks for a venti iced mocha, she’s already at the end of her rope.

“I’m sorry, did you mean a large?” Maia asks through gritted teeth, forcing a smile. She knows Cocky Blond means a large, but she _has_ to ask, because some asshole threw a fit because she gave him a medium when he asked for a grande once.

(Magnus had been the most benevolent boss in the world and given her the rest of the day off without losing her pay, and a small raise to go with the new policy. Magnus is the best boss she’s had, and it’s that fact alone that keeps her coming back every day. He believes in things like decent health insurance and full-time hours and wages of fifteen dollars an hour plus tips and she’s never going to find that again. Not with her degree, anyway.)

(In hindsight, majoring in English with a minor in physics probably was not the greatest idea she’s had.)

Cocky Blond looks up and nods and she revises her opinion a little when they apologize and even look genuinely contrite about it.

“Jace, what did you do to Maia? She looks like she’s about to rip your face off.” The reprimand comes from Maia’s favorite customer, the truly _gorgeous_ Isabelle, who comes in every day at two for a piece of lemon pound cake and an extra-large mocha with six shots of espresso. (Maia asked, once. Isabelle’s in med school and lives off of caffeine.) “Forgive my sibling, Jace was raised by wolves, apparently.”

“You do realize that means you were raised by wolves, right?” The apparently-named Jace says and Maia stifles a snort.

“You’re siblings?” she asks, because where Isabelle is short and dark-haired, Jace is taller and blond. The only things she’d qualify as a family resemblance are the fact that they’re both way too pretty and a preference for mochas.

“Even if I wish they weren’t, sometimes,” Isabelle says with a sigh.

“You still haven’t forgiven me for the cooking thing, have you?”

Maia tunes out the bickering, amusing as it is, and gets to work. She starts putting together Jace’s drink and swears under her breath when she realizes she forgot the chocolate syrup in the storage room.

By the time Maia comes back out with the syrup, Isabelle’s in the middle of an explanation about something that Maia thinks might be related to her med school classes. (She aced physics, not biology, and certainly not chemistry, so she doesn’t usually quite get what Isabelle talked about.) She goes through making their drinks on auto-pilot and listens to an increasingly exasperated Isabelle try explaining something to an increasingly amused Jace, smirking when she realizes Jace is winding their sister up.

“Iced mocha for Jace, and a hot mocha with six espresso shots for you, Isabelle,” Maia says, interrupting before Isabelle can actually kill her sibling like she clearly wants to. “I’ll get your pound cake, hang on.”

“ _Six_ shots, Izzy? Do you _want_ a heart attack?”

Maia files the nickname away in the back of her head while she heats up the pound cake, right next to the fact that Isabelle’s actually really short without her heels, and the fact that Isabelle’s apparently the top of her class. She hears Jace mutter something when she leans down to pull a stack of napkins to set aside for restocking later. (Every day, around three, all the napkins vanish. Maia still can’t figure it out.)

In the time it takes her to wrap it in wax paper and turn around, Isabelle’s finished sweetening her drink and is standing there with a smirk on her face. Maia wordlessly holds out the cake for Isabelle to take and blinks in surprise when Isabelle hands her a napkin.

She looks down at it and squints a little because she doesn’t have her reading glasses, trying to make out what’s on it. When she does, she blushes and looks back up at Isabelle and Jace, because _what_. This is not her life.

_Jace and I think you’re cute. Feel free to call, even just to hang out._

There are two numbers below it, initials helpfully indicating which number is which. There’s another note further down that almost looks more like scribble than words, and Maia suspects that’s Isabelle’s handwriting.

_Just so you know, Jace went “oh god I’m gay” when you weren’t paying attention_

The smiles on their faces indicate that this is, in fact, Maia’s life, that she’s holding a napkin with the numbers of her favorite customer and her favorite customer’s also-attractive sibling.

Before she can figure out what to say, Isabelle catches sight of the clock above Maia’s head and swears with a vehemence that says she’s running late. She takes off, hurrying out of the coffee shop and breaking into a run that shouldn’t even be _possible_ in five-inch heels, which leaves Maia with Jace, who’s smirking at her, the attitude from earlier back in full force.

“What did Izzy say about me, anyway? She wouldn’t let me read her addition,” Jace says, gesturing to the napkin still in Maia’s hand. Maia smirks back at them, tucking the napkin in her apron pocket, and shrugs. Something about Jace makes her want to poke holes in their apparent ego.

“Who said it was about you? Maybe she was just telling me not to bother,” she replies, only looking away when the bell above the door rings, one of her other regulars coming in. “And now I have to get back to work.”

“You should call. At least call Izzy. She really likes you.” With that, Jace walks away and Maia absolutely does _not_ check them out as they exit the store, heading the opposite direction of their sister.

As she starts on Clary’s latte, she thinks _fuck it_. She’ll call. At worst, she turns out to not like either of them and it’s time wasted, but it can’t hurt to try.


End file.
